Two poems by Boona Daroom

Black Friday

I actually think
We are going to hit
The mall because
The gamma waves
Have fried us.
Visibly trembling
Vendors are putting
Signs In the windows
Like battened hatches
For a storm namedNow. From the moment
We arrive in the parking
Lot we are dumbstruck
By landscape rife
With supermarkets
And lingerie. Whatever.
I am eating some gluten
Because people don’t win.
Hot trends markup due
To leftist associations
Like lake water passing
Through a hung jury.
Two girls pretend
Ken and Barbie are fighting
Over how she should
Do her hair, as thus
Un-necessity impresses
Upon our brood phallic
Ideals of female purity.
I am pretty blown away
At how hot the white
Steam is hissing from the
RadioShack. 16 different
Televisions going at once.
Sometimes triggers stick
But sometimes they don’t
And yet, we are surprised
When a child puts one foot
On the asphalt and sprays
Bullets. There is no help
In my phone but I’m hugging
And guzzling Irish coffee
At local gladiatorial contest.
Protesters have gathered
In the streets, I guess
In hopes our fates will
Be lifted monotheistically.
I am surrendering.
I am stuffing as many
Xboxes as possible
Into a massive trunk
With a bunch of
Golf balls before
Our time is up.
Go ahead, exit
Whenever you want
Wherever you want.
Run for your life.

Gox

I couldn’t turn down the idea of cereal with aliens
except maybe to drink something more substantial
like all the oil fields of the Los Angeles Basin. Yes
pulling a man out of his car and repeatedly punching
him in the head is a routine traffic stop. It’s not easy.
Lay us down on ambivalent ground. Perhaps our
sight is exhausted and hearts dulled and we elect
not to see the feather-like petals of ice shelf soften.
Men in leather Christian Motorcyclists Association
jackets stand next to the George Washington I drew
pictures of in second grade who might have swapped
denture tips the Redcoats, Hessians or whoever else.
There is nothing left in the landfill, please go away.

Boona Daroom’s work has appeared in Lit, Softblow, Monday Night, and Dryland, among other places. He lives in Brooklyn.